The Minecraft update – horses get blocky

The recent Minecraft update has added in new dimensions to the game and rejuvenated many people’s interest. And added horses. We have a report filed by Callum L, our Senior Junior Minecraft Correspondent:

The new Minecraft update (1.6.1) has revolutionized the face of the game forever. They have changed the gameplay launcher and most of the game mechanics.

The main feature in this update is the addition of horses. However, they can only be ridden with saddles found in dungeons, forcing you to find a dungeon and fight through many monsters to get a chance to get a saddle. Mojang was going to add a horse saddle at the last moment but removed it.

Horses can make you move much faster, or carry 15 more items for you but move a little slower. The kinds that spawn in the wild are the slow, carrying donkey, and the fast horse. If you breed these two types then you get the best of both kinds, the mule, which can carry and move at half speed. However, all of these have revolutionized transport, as before you had to get massive quantities of iron to make a mine cart railway.

The new launcher is brilliant, although it does have flaws. It allows you to select different versions to play, making it so you can always go on that server that hasn’t updated. However, if you convert a texture pack to a resource pack using Mojang’s software, there if often a bug that makes text unreadable.

Another great thing is that the new resource packs allow you to include sound and mods as well as textures. These are a boon to mod designers, as they no longer need Modloader or Forge to install mods. This and the fact that Mojang has publicly announced that they have worked with Dr Zhark of the Mocreatures mod to create this new update will encourage more mod designers, after all, who doesn’t want to work with Mojang to make the next update?

All in all, this is a good update, but Mojang needs to fix a few things. The overall gameplay is the same, but with improvements. I can’t wait for the bug fix.